The Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation operates
the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre, and employs
palaeontologists Rich McCrea and Lisa Buckley. Detailed information
on the palaeontological discoveries that have been made so
far, their collection, storage, preparation and description
can be found at the PRPRC website: www.prprc.com

Tumbler Ridge lies on the eastern flanks of
the northern Rocky Mountains, in an unparalleled foothills
location in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Over the
past five years the Tumbler Ridge’s non-profit non-mechanized
outdoors group, Wolverine Nordic and Mountain Society, has
developed twenty two hiking trails that lead to area highlights.
Visit their website at www.pris.bc.ca/wnms for further details
of this magnificent trail system that leads to mountain summits,
caves, canyons, waterfalls, dinosaur tracks and much more.

Tumbler Ridge is known as the “waterfall node of the north”.
Although Kinuseo Falls has the largest volume and is the region’s
best known waterfall, there are dozens of other falls with varying
degrees of accessibility. Bergeron Falls is the highest accessible
falls in BC’s northeast, at over 300 feet high. It is reached
via a 5 kilometer hiking trail. The Cascades, in Monkman Provincial
Park, are one of the world’s least known scenic treasures.
Here the waters of Monkman Creek plunge eight times in a row,
separated by lake-like widenings. Trail access was improved
in 2004 and 2005, and rustic campsites constructed. The Museum
Foundation and Wolverine Nordic and Mountain Society are partnering
with the creation of the Monkman Memorial Trail which will
transect the Rocky Mountains along this historic route, through
superb scenery.

Some of the Tumbler Ridge area’s scenic highlights
are featured in a photographic display in the Tumbler Ridge
Community
Centre.

While the palaeontology topic is so big and hot in Tumbler
Ridge that is justifies a separate TRMF theme, the area’s other
natural history is no less fascinating. Some of this is currently
threatened by the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic, with its unpredictable
outcomes.

The region is still blessed with abundant wildlife,
with an impressive variety of large mammal species that
are often seen, including Grizzly and Black Bear populations..
The bird
list is steadily increasing and stands at 227. In 2004
the BC Field Naturalists held their AGM in Tumbler Ridge, attracted
by one of the regions’s ornithological claims to
fame, for this is where eastern and western species meet
at the extremes
of their respective ranges.

Large parts of the mountain ranges of composed of limestone,
and the area has been explored over the past decade for
its cave potential. Although no huge caves have yet been
discovered,
an
impressive array of smaller caves has been discovered,
up to 200 feet deep. BC’s only known ice caves and
first underground icefall are other interesting features,
and the search continues.

Many of these themes will be developed into museum exhibits
in the future.